Opening preferences

I'd be interested to hear what your opening preferences are and to instigate some games between players of the team once our Championship match season ends.

One of my first inclinations for joining chess.com was the opportunity to try out different chess openings. I deliberately joined  various groups and tournaments that were themed around different openings. Even the obscure opening starting with g4 known as Grob's attack. That was fun, I did quite well too.

I also followed quite a few vote chess games again to see how other players approached the opening. It seemed clear that many players only play one main opening line. and do not like being taken out of their comfort zone. Whereas others are more flexible and actively look to test out more unusual lines. My most recent line with the d4 opening is the excellently named 'Nimzo-Indian Defense: Three Knights, Duchamp Variation'. With my artistic background I am thrilled to find a Duchamp named opening :-)

I do tend towards d4 in the main. This hasn't been a conscious decision though and my opening choice usually depends upon who I'm playing. And sometimes I just throw in something new for fun.

So what openings are our Cumbria Teams favourite opening lines? Would you be interested for some opening themed team games. We can set these up as not counting to your ranking so players of different levels can play each other more easily. I'd like to get to know the team members a little more and we can analyse each other's games if we wish.

Cheers

Taylor

I tend to open e4 then knights , sometimes Queens gambit

From your game stats Lenny it looks like you've played e4 over 700 times with the Italian game most often occurring - 100 of these games. But I see you've also played the Hillbilly Attack so you're not afraid to play quirky lines either :-)

I tend to favour the English with white and the Sicilian with black. I'd be interested in themed games as a way of learning new openings.

Hi David

I can see a lot of sense with linking your English opening and the Sicilian defence together.

I will start to put a list of openings together for tournament options. I would definitely consider c4 as one of these, I often use it when playing against other players that are dominantly d4 or e4 in their own repertoires.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers

Taylor

Hey, When I first started playing here it was to get good enough to beat people I know OTB. I was a terrible player to begin with and back then I couldn't name a single opening. I looked up some advice on how to improve and one of the general things I got was don't get bogged down in opening theory when you're just a beginner. Follow opening principles and go from there. So that's what I did, I eventually came up with a way of opening on my own and it was the same in both black and white (the opening I was playing was like a London I think).
When I felt more settled I decided to learn some new openings by playing thematic tournaments here on chess.com and watching tutorials on youtube, the opening that has really stuck with me is the sicilian dragon. I like how aggressive it is with white and as black it creates a solid defence. I've been using it a while so I've seen a lot of variations on it. To be honest though I still open in lots of different ways and try to react to my opponent rather than just following a memorised line as I'm still a novice really.

Thanks for those notes Cusbot. I agree entirely good opening nous rather than memorising move sequences is essential. I also like the opening mantra of 3 key factors to remember:

developent

development

and development

It's also interesting to see how many different  positions from a given opening line are perfectly playable. The Sicilian opening in particular is a great one to explore I think.

Cheers

Taylor

Hi,

this might be predictable, but my favourite is the Italian opening .
As I am a beginner, this is also the only opening I really know. I think it would be a great idea to do themed tournament on a particular opening and I am personally keen to any. 

Thanks Digitaylor for the very good idea!

Hi Asbrega

LOL ;-)

Thanks for your comments

Taylor